GG_N54_FR-web

LOIRE VALLEY
DISCOVERY
brother Maxime who started with the 2023 harvest
season. “We strive to produce delicate, refined and
precise wines that reflect the purity of the fruit
from the original vineyard site”. This is true both of
the sweet and the dry wines. “We have used pneumatic
presses since 1969, which help us segment
and select the juice. We adapt pressing to suit the
crop”. The winery is popular in the international
market: “A large share of our wines is sold in export
markets”, stresses Charles Baumard. And it focuses
primarily on still white wines and on a Crémant de
Loire. But the Baumards do produce a light red,
vintage permitting. Their 2019 Le Clos du Papillon,
one of their two Savennières, caught our attention
in particular. It comes from more clayey soils
than the Clos de Saint Yves, which grows on sandy
blocks, but generally speaking, the soils are schist.
“We are sandwiched between the maritime climate
of the Atlantic coast – more or less 125 km away
– and Touraine’s continental climate. Although
Anjou’s weather patterns are fairly temperate, there
are often significant variations in sunshine, heat,
rainfall and wind. The wide rows of vines allow us
to adapt our techniques to a changing climate”. The
technique was introduced by Jean Baumard at the
end of the 1950s and enabled both mechanisation
– in an era when weedkillers were considered the
silver bullet – and ground cover between the vine
rows. Although the winery has farmed sustainably
since then, it is now in its second year of conversion
to organic. In practice, though, the vineyards have
long been farmed organically: “My father was afraid
there would be an extra administrative workload
and pointless inspections but I kind of got the
process back in motion when I arrived”, explains
Charles Baumard, just to clarify things for the
winery’s customers.
FLORENT AND CHARLES BAUMARD
FLORENT BAUMARD IN THE FAMILY WINERY
DOMAINE DE LA BOUGRIE:
A BONNEZEAUX FULL OF JOY
The winery, based in the locality of the same
name which is steeped in winegrowing legends,
currently extends over around 100 hectares. Eight
WINTER 2023 • GILBERT & GAILLARD - THE FRENCH EXPERTS ON WINE
87